The first thing you need to do is determine if your hardware will work with
XP.
In general, the CPU should be at least 1 GHz clock speed.
You will need a minimum of 256 Megs of RAM memory (512 Megs would be
better).
You should have a minimum of 20 Gigabytes of Hard Drive.
While the above requirements exceed the minimum listed for XP, without the
capabilities listed you will find XP much slower and poorer performing than
98 on that computer.
Next you should download and run the XP evaluation software. You may find
that your sound card, modem, and maybe even your video card all need new
driver software. You may also find that your scanner is not compatible and
I know you will need new printer driver software. You may have other
Software Programs incompatibilities. Fixing all of these may cost more
than the price of a new computer that comes with XP.
For the evaluation software go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/upgrading/advisor.mspx